


A Flaming Candle

by chronicAngel



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Massage, Nightmares, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 16:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8217779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: Sokka and Suki both still have nightmares.





	

It starts as a flaming candle, burning in front of her in the middle of a dark, empty room. She stares at it, marvels at the light as if she has never seen one before, reaches out as if she is going to touch it, like she wouldn't get burned, and that's when it starts to grow in size and in heat. Her expression shifts from one of amazement to one of horror and she steps back but it is too late and soon the fire is swallowing her whole.

When she wakes up, she is sweaty and trembling and gasping for breath, and she's in Sokka's arms before she has time to process that she's crying or even that she's actually woken up and that this is real and isn't some horrible trick.

She clings to him like he is her lifeline, as if letting go would cause her to fall to her death and break everything until she was just a bloody flesh sack filled with the fragments of her bones. After a minute, she regains her ability to think and feel, no longer running on pure adrenaline and fight-or-flight reflexes, and she realizes that her face is in Sokka's neck and his hand is in her hair and he's running his fingers through it in the hopes of calming her down. It takes her a couple more minutes to regain her breath, and to realize that he was a heavier sleeper than she was and he shouldn't be awake at all, despite the fact that he seemed to have already been awake when her own nightmare woke her, which had to mean--

"Did you have a nightmare, baby?" She mumbles the question against the skin of his neck, and the stiffening of his muscles as he tenses is answer enough. Tiredly, she sits up, yawning before looking into his eyes, steel meeting ice. Her lips meet his naturally, for only a second, before she moves to be sitting behind him, her knees folded underneath her as he leans back against her legs to look up at her face. She starts with rubbing his shoulders, her fingers pressing small circles into his shoulder blades until she feels them relax, and slowly she moves up the back of his neck, along his spine, to his scalp.

He leans his head into it, welcoming the gentle touches of her fingers banishing a malformed headache that throbs dully at his temples.

They remain like that in silence for a while, until she feels all of his muscles loosen underneath her fingers and he's like putty in her hands. She works her way down to his shoulders again, and then just rests her hands there, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck and whispering against the skin, "Do you want to talk about it?" She can hear him sigh, and she knows he wants to say no but she also knows he won't.

"It's... the sun. It's in the sky, a glowing ball of fire that hangs over my head like the Fire Nation loomed over everyone's heads constantly. It's a reminder of everything that happened, and that's bad enough, until... The fire. It just becomes more and more concentrated. It burns everything. The house. Our friends. You."

She can feel him shudder, and frowns, wrapping her arms around him. He rubs at the bags that have made a home for themselves under his eyes before laying on his side, pressing gentle kisses to the skin of her arms and legs, whatever he could reach, which prompted her to laugh and lay down next to him. He stared at her for a long moment, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Do you... want to talk about yours?"

"It always starts the same... A flaming candle, in the middle of a dark room, and I'm... alone. It's so pretty that I start to move toward it, but the second I reach out for it, it starts getting bigger... Huge. It reaches me quickly, and then..." She stutters, and her willingness to speak seems to fizzle out.

"I'm not going to let anything like that happen." He pauses-- hesitates, even, before continuing, "You're never alone, Suki. I'll never leave you alone." A small smile finds its way onto her face and she moves closer to him, resting her chin on his chest to look up at his face with unimposing grey eyes that have seen so much blood and death. She wants to put it all behind her and just be in this moment, be with him, but she knows just as well as he does that she can't, and so she pushes it to the back of her mind to inevitably rise to the surface like a corpse later.

"I love you, Sokka."

He smiles, and presses his nose to hers, closing his eyes. "I love you, Suki."

They continue to lay like that for a long while, and eventually, she is lulled back to sleep by the calm of the moment, and her nightmares have been fought off for now, though they haven't exactly been replaced by dreams. Instead, it is a comfortable silence; her sleep is filled with an empty blackness that she welcomes with open arms and if she were awake she would wonder if Sokka was dreaming or if he had even gone back to sleep or if he was just watching her. Her soft breaths tumble out against his chest and his arm curls around her protectively and for another night, the two of them sleep peacefully.


End file.
